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[-|BRARY OF CONGRESS 

021 496 579 3 



Hollinger Corp. 



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L(3 'l'h^S 



ADDRESS 



AT THE 



41st Annual Dinner 



of the 



HARVARD CRIMSON 



by 



Howard Elliott '81 

Chairman of the 
NEW YORK NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD RAILROAD 

COMPANY 



HARVARD UNION 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS 

May 15, 1914 



"X 



IN EXCHAK'^ 



JUN 5 Wl* 



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I am very glad indeed to have a chance to meet some of 
the undergraduates. 

It is an inspiration to a graduate to come back to Cam- 
bridge and realize how much he owes to Harvard, to feel 
how much Harvard has done, understand how much Har- 
vard is doing and believe how much Harvard can do for 
the country if the graduates and future graduates make 
the best of the training which Harvard is able to give. 
After you have been out of college for a number of years 
some here may look back and wish they had made better 
use of the advantages which Harvard offered. These are 
your golden days. 

Some also may at times ask themselves why they spent 
four years at Canabridge. The best answer is that you may 
equip yourselves to do your part of the work of the world 
and particularly of the IJnited States in future years. Some 
of you no doubt, are already looking out into the world and 
wondering what will come to you. A limited number may 
have your path fairly well mapped out, because of environ- 
ment, or success on the part of forbears to which you may 
succeed if you do your duty. 

Most of you, however, must go out into the world and 
fight your way and deal with the opportunities and condi- 
tions to confront you. 

I have never been much of a believer of the ^' round peg 
in a square hole" theory. In a majority of cases, I believe 
if a man has in him elements of success he will succeed in 
one field of human endeavor quite as well as in another, 
although, of course, there are exceptions where a man has 
so marked a desire to be a lawyer, doctor, or an engineer, 
that he may fail in another pursuit. What you learn from 
books will be of great value not only for the knowledge im- 
parted but the mental training will direct you when you 
are to deal with new conditions. What you learn of human 
nature by association with your fellows should also be of 
great value. 



You and those who teach you have a great responsibility 
to the public, for upon you and those like you in other Uni- 
versities will fall a large part of the burden of solving many 
of the problems pressing upon the country in these and 
future years. The indications are that the next fifty years 
in our Nation's life will be of all absorbing interest to all 
mankind. 

In the last few years there has been very properly much 
talk about the conservation of our national resources. "We 
must not waste them. Each one of you also owes a duty 
to himself and the country to conserve his own resources 
and live in such a way that mentally, morally and physically 
every power of body and mind is conserved so that you may 
do your share of the work of the world. 

In going out into the world you may at times feel that 
opportunities to make a name or fortune are not what they 
were when your father or grandfather started. It is true 
that conditions are different now and there is not the same 
chance for the rapid accumulation of great fortunes there 
was when the natural resources of the country were un- 
developed and free for bold, strong men to take. In spite 
of that, however, never were the opportunities greater than 
to-day for intelligent, level-headed and hard-working men 
of high character to work for the nation and themselves in 
an effort to manage the complicated machinery of govern- 
ment and business so that there will be a minimum of lost 
motion in our national growth. 

This country has developed wonderfully since the Civil 
War. Great work has been done, requiring the exercise of 
much strength and carrying with it necessarily some waste 
and mistakes, yet on the whole the work has been well done 
and as a result the material comforts of the American 
people are greater than those of any other nation. During 
this struggle for development some lines of business, but 
not all, in fact, only a small proportion, have been conducted 
on lines not now considered right and fair. The unthinking 
man and the demagogue are magnifying past and present 
evils. By minimizing the good they are doing harm in an 



effort to make people think all business and all government 
is corrupt and managed by crooked and unfair men. 
Easselas, talking with his sister, said : 

^ ' Let us not imagine evils which we do not 
feel, nor injure life by misrepresentations. I 
cannot bear with querulous eloquence which 
threatens every city like that of Jerusalem, 
that makes famine attend on every flight of 
locusts and sends pestilence on the wings of 
every blast that issues from the South." 

The training at Harvard should help you to tell right 
from wrong, to be accurate and temperate in statement and 
to exercise your influence for prudent, wise and just con- 
duct in business and governmental affairs. The standards 
of business life are growing steadily better, notwithstand- 
ing assertions to the contrary; and the world needs more 
than ever men of training, of unswerving integrity and 
moral courage who will in their daily lives show that 
*^ Honesty is the best policy." 

On July fifth next it will be thirty-four years since I 
shouldered a level rod in northwestern Missouri and began 
to earn my living at fifteen dollars a month and rather poor 
board! What I learned at Cambridge was of great help 
to me and I hoped then as many of you do now, that I would 
not have to work all my life and would have some leisure 
long before this^ but the Fates ordered otherwise. 

Two facts have impressed themselves upon my mind in 
my business experience and perhaps they will be of use to 
you. One is that prejudice causes a great many of the 
troubles that come to the individual and to government. 
If you can be so trained here that you look at facts and 
conditions without prejudice it will help you much and also 
the country. Conclusions which are often based upon half 
truths, prejudiced statements and lack of knowledge are 
frequently reached too hastily. In business, in law, in 
medicine and in srovemmental affairs a man must exhaust 



4 

Ms snbject before lie brings in Ms report, Ms diagnosis, and 
Ms conclusion. It must be based on a tborougb study of all 
facts, and be fair and without prejudice. 

Take the business that I am engaged in, — tbe Eailroad. 
It is probably true that no boy or young man starts out 
mtb a hostile attitude towards the railroad, a piece of 
machinery absolutely necessary to the welfare of all the 
people. In fact, many boys are attracted by the railroad 
as a business, for it has power, interesting physical attri- 
butes, and it touches life at many points and there is some 
romance too. Later, however, prejudice begins to creep in 
and he thinks there are peculiar qualities about a railroad 
or a public service corporation that enable it to survive 
attacks and burdens and business methods which he would 
not assent to for an individual. All railroads and all rail- 
road men, however, should not be condemned because some 
railroad men have done things not now considered right, 
either in law or public opinion. Every time a clergyman, 
a doctor, a politician or a cashier is punished for a mis- 
demeanor we do not condemn the Church, the practice of 
medicine, the government or the banks, and yet there is a 
tendency to condemn all public service corporations and 
particularly railroads because of failure to manage some 
of them honestly and efficiently and through lack of infor- 
mation conclusions are reached which are more or less the 
result of prejudice. 

Mr. Lincoln, on March twenty-first, 1864, replied to a 
committee from the Working Men's Association of New 
York City as follows : 

'^No man living is more worthy to be 
trusted than those who toil up from poverty — 
none less inclined to take or touch aught which 
they have not honestly earned. 

^^The most notable feature of a disturbance 
in your city last Summer was the hanging of 
some working people by other working people. 
It should never be so. The strongest bond of 



limnaii sympatliy, outside of the family rela- 
tion, should be one uniting all working people, 
of all nations and tongues and kindreds. 

^^Nor should this lead to a war upon prop- 
erty or the owners of property. Property is 
the fruit of labor, property is desirable, is a 
positive good to the world. That some should 
be rich shows that others may become rich, 
and hence, is just encouragement to industry 
and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless 
pull down the house of another, but let him 
labor diligently and build one for himself, thus 
by example assuring that his own shall be safe 
from violence when built." 

Here is a good example from a great man of looking 
at all sides of a serious situation and speaking without 
prejudice. What he said fifty years ago should be consid- 
ered calmly by the representatives of Labor and Capital at 
this time when adjusting the proper relations between them 
is one of the great problems of the day. 

Another quality absolutely essential in these compli- 
cated modern times is that of patience. We forget, in the 
comforts and luxuries that surround us, the patient toil 
and accumulated effort that enable us to live as we do. 

To give the population of the United States their three 
meals a day means that one hundred billion meals are 
served in a year, and the question of transportation enters 
into every one of those meals. The human mind cannot 
quite interpret these figures and the work can only be done 
through patience in developing the great occupations of 
agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation and 
allied pursuit and by insisting that the G-overnment be fair 
and square to each and all. These hundred billion meals 
cannot be served unless there is the proper balance between 
all forces affecting these forms of industry. Without that 
balance you and I and the nation cannot advance as we 
should. In future years you and men like you must act 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



6 



021 496 579 




without prejudice and with patience in efforts to balance 
up the great industrial, moral and financial forces so that 
disturbance and misfortune will not come to this great 
country. 

There is nothing mysterious about business, it is simply 
a question of hard, patient work, day in and day out, a 
close, careful analysis of every situation; development of 
the greatest care, economy, thrift and efficiency, and, more 
than all for ultimate and real success, fair dealing and the 
highest honesty. 

You are among the favored young men of the land in 
having an opportunity to get an education in fine sur- 
roundings among good associates. You can make the best 
use of your great opportunity for yourselves and for your 
native land by conserving your resources, by avoiding 
prejudice and by learning patience to endure the work it 
will be your lot to undertake. 

* ^ Plant Patience in the Garden of thy Soul 
The roots are bitter, but the fruits are sweet ; 
And when at last it stands a tree complete, 
Beneath its tender shade, the burning heat 
And burden of the day shall lose control. 
Plant Patience in the Garden of thy Soul.'' 



L'BRARY OF CONGRESS 

0J21 496 579 3 



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